The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1887-08-25
A SUMMER CITY.
What Might he Accomplished IL People
Would Stay ut Home.
JENNY JUNE.
tL0pyrfDhted. ISL

JENNY JUNE.
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One curious result of modern civilization
and mechanical contrivance is the inn
patience of every one at the least touch of
discomfort, and the universal desire to escape
from it at any risk and in any way that can
be made practicable. People talk now about
the summer heat of cities as if it was some
thing quite new to experience and could
not be survived by average human nature.
Yet there was time. not SO very remote,
when few left New York in the summer season
and then only for a short time; when the
Battery on a summer evening and the OPEN
air gardens were alive as such spaces and
resorts are abroad, with pleasure-seekers, and
the domestic life of families remained un-
broken the year round.
As it is now, people manage to get very
little of comfort out of country or city.
With the majority the summer outing means
the separation of families, the breaking up
of homes, and the continued wear and tear
of change and adjustment to new conditions.
Summer heat in cities is largely terror Of the
imagination. Even during this exception
ally hot season there are plenty of men and
some women who have worked through it,
and not suffered more than their neighbors
who have been in the country. There is a
good dea! in the way you take heat Some
people take it in the form of dry Russian
or moist Turkish bath, and pay dollar an
hour for it. But if you cannot afford it at
that rate, take 1t in summer for nothing
have a water-pipe, sponge and towel handy,
and you get all the Turkish baths you re-
quire to get rid of rheumatism or anything
else, and nothing to pay. Natural perspira-
ton does not weaken, and if it can be fol-
lowed pretty frequently by quick, cool
sponge bath and vigorous rubbing it
strengthens and invigorates.
Then there is the comfort of such food as
you like and are accustomed to; of plenty of
fresh fruits and vegetables-not so good, per-
haps as those the amateur gardener grows
himself, but quite as good and much more
abundant than is found on the tables of the
majority of country boarding-houses. For the
lack of these things in the country-that is,
such country" as is available to the majority
of summer boarders-is proverbial, and even
enough of cows milk, not to say cream, is
advertised by the rural proprietors of sum-
mer quarters as an unusual attraction.
City people gain their impressions of the
country from books, from poets, from pic
lures and works of the imagination, but it
IL rarely we find the dreams they produce
realized by anything we see in actual coun-
try life. Occasionally the rich owner of a
countrywide kept up at the rate of so 600
q year, is lucky enough to secure "brook;"
but if he does, it no longer "ripples and
sparkles' unseen. He banks it up, kills the
water-cress, builds gay rustic bridge over
1t, and has the American flag flying from it,
30 that no one shall overlook 1t. Every
thing is put on exhibition, without any re-
gard to the fact that in taking it out of its
seclusion interest and character are lost.
The principal drawback to the comfort of
city life in summer is the dirt and neglect
and the dullness and deadness caused by
absenteeism.
1t 10 not pleasant to see all the houses in
your neighborhood shut up tight as if the
city had been stricken by the plague. 1t
Is not pleasant to have the dirt and
debris of their neglected sidewalks blown
into your area, or to hear the wailings of
their homeless and foodless cats and other
domestic animals. 1t is not pleasant to
have all the charm of social life and neigh
borhood gatherings cut of, and to be the
only one of all your friends and acquaint-
ances who ''cannot afford to leave town.
Men suffer much more than women from the
enforced isolation, because women usually
remain with their husbands or some mem
bars of their family. But the position Of
many men is really pitiable, and the more
excellent and conscientious they are the
more they suffer, for they have little taste
for the only distractions which present them
selves. A bright and pretty widow, who
usually has her house filled with pay
ing family boarders hit upon Q brilliant
idea this year. Instead Of allowing her
house to be rum by servants for the
benefit Of the two or three who could not
get away, she determined to stay at home
herself and make . reputation for ''din-
ners'' at . fixed price for gentlemen whose
wives were out Of the city. She gained q
clientele of about dozen at d per head her
dinners were excellent. She took pains to
produce gay and agreeable atmosphere. She
ID tolerable musician, and amateur tenors
and baritones are glad to assist in furnishing
music in the evening Those Of her dinner
boarden who are Of domestic turn and
disliks going out alone invite her to the
Madison-squsre Thsatre, made cool by fans
passing and repassing over tons Of ice, or the
Casino, where "Erminis' still draws with
out regard to temperature. Con6dentially she
remarked the other day that she had never
madeso much money within the same space
Of time and never enjoyed . summer more.
But al men cannot be diverted by the clever
Wila Of widows, even II there were widows
enough TO divert them. There IL Q lonely